Theater

Every once in a while, there is an opportunity to see a great play that has become more historically important than just a play. If done well, the experience not only offers the power and wonder of something well-written and well-performed, but a kind of awe for all it has taught and still has to teach about humanity, history, and the nature of the human heart.

He wasn’t sure what it was when he first saw it, but as a Pink Floyd fan, Eric Hamme knew he scored a good find at a record store last year after coming across a book of lyrics and CD called “Darkside.

Just a little more than two years ago, a tribute to the woman dubbed “Queen of Rock” first appeared at the Pasadena Playhouse. More than just the usual tribute show, what was then called “One Night with Janis Joplin” used an evening of song and conversation with Mary Bridget Davies’ Joplin to explore the roots of her music, her strong ties to traditional blues, and the passion that inspired her to toss aside a middle-class lifestyle in favor of the short but important life she would have in rock ’n’ roll.

The words skip boldly across the poster like many modern advertisements, only the products touted here are hope, faith and the human condition. Corita Kent’s pop-art works combine and reflect her fervor for faith and politics, which made her a vital part of the Los Angeles art scene in the 1960s and ’70s.

Breaking out of old patterns, ridding ourselves of toxic habits, or just growing up sometimes requires extreme courage. In the highly metaphoric play “Shiv,” the character who navigates the path of maturity and change is given the qualities of the Hindu deity Shiva.

It would be difficult for anyone to try to fill Gene Kelly’s shoes. The famous dancer, actor, singer and film director forever changed Hollywood musicals thanks to his athletic and energetic dance style and films like “Anchors Aweigh” (1945), in which he had a dance duet with Jerry the Mouse, and the 1951 classic “An American in Paris.

Sandra Tsing Loh is having something of a party, and you’re invited. Her new one-woman stand-up show, “The B**** is Back: An All-Too Intimate Conversation,” is being staged in The Edye theater at The Broad Stage in Santa Monica cabaret-style with tables and, yes, alcohol.

Ten years ago, writers Ben Acker and Ben Blacker got a group of actor friends together to do a live run-through of a script they were working on titled “Sparks Nevada, Marshal on Mars.” They had so much fun with the actors that it spawned a Los Angeles-based show, in the style of radio plays, now known as “

It was hot and sunny on a recent Friday afternoon, but inside a century-old Los Angeles theater, in a dimly lit room at the top of a narrow winding stairway, it felt like a different world. The tranquil sound of crashing waves, trickling water, wind and cracking ice engulfed the room.

“The Phantom of the Opera” comes to the Hollywood Pantages Theatre once again, this time with the promise of a “spectacular new production” in its new touring version. Truth be told, it has been redesigned, restaged and apparently reorchestrated.

The title “Bad Jews” might imply “campy,” but this dark comedy is nothing of the sort. It tells the story of Daphna Feygenbaum, an aspiring rabbi who feuds with her secular cousin, Liam, over who will get to inherit the Chai (Hebrew for “life”) pendant that belonged to their late grandfather.

Rarely does a show turn up that absolutely transcends the usual enthusiasms for a work of theater. Such a production is the Royal Shakespeare Co.’s outrageous, impressive blast of fresh air that is “Matilda The Musical,” Dennis Kelly and Tim Minchin’s glorious take on

It’s become a symbol of the season for many Shakespeare fans. During the summer months, a large truck pulls up to outdoor venues across the Southland carrying the makings of an elaborate theatrical performance: sets, sound equipment, costumes and more.

“This is the way the world ends,” wrote T.S. Eliot. “Not with a bang, but a whimper.” In Los Angeles Opera’s presentation of David T. Little and Royce Vavrek’s apocalyptic opera “Dog Days” (on stage at the Cal Arts REDCAT theater through today), the world ends with both — a plaintive whimper and a rain of bombs.

Members of the Held2gether Improv Troupe are ready for their first full musical Saturday at Long Beach’s Expo Arts Center — just don’t ask any of them what it’s about, or if they know their lines or even any of the songs.

Australian Theatre Company returns to the Matrix Theatre at 7 p.m. Wednesday with a free staged reading of “Speaking in Tongues,” a play by Andrew Bovell that inspired the award-winning independent film “Lantana.

The off-Broadway hit musical “Murder for Two” is a love letter to theatrical possibilities. Never mind whodunit. In the course of 90 minutes, the two stars of this offbeat murder mystery sing, dance and play piano while acting out a story that has

Love can be transformative, affecting your life long after you and that special someone have parted ways. It’s what we learn from these experiences and how we use that knowledge that is at the core of the new musical, “Waterfall,” premiering at the

The joy of theater comes to the great outdoors during the summer, a season when popular works by Shakespeare and other writers are staged in the fresh air. SHAKESPEARE WILL GEER’S THEATRICUM BOTANICUM 1419 N.

It’s a concert and theatrical performance with cutting-edge lighting effects. For fans of the long-running show coming to the Carpenter Performing Arts Center in Long Beach, it’s an all-encompassing and oddly fulfilling experience.

It has long been a rule of the theater that social change or tension is best examined in intimate situations. That, for all its prodigious humor, is the aim of Paul Oakley Stovall’s new play “Immediate Family,” now at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles.

The second Sci-Fest L.A., a four-week theatrical delight, kicks off Thursday in Hollywood. Last year’s Los Angeles Science Fiction One-Act Play Festival, billed as a first-of-its-kind, brought compelling sci-fi tales to the stage — something very few writers of the genre outside of Ray Bradbury have attempted.

With his cropped hair and trimmed handlebar mustache, Ricardo Salinas, one of three founding members of the acclaimed Culture Clash theater troupe, stands on a small stage in a colorful theater in Boyle Heights.

A waxing moon will help shine the light on a perfect setting for people with an undying love for classic literature and theater when Unbound Productions presents “A Night at the Mausoleum III” on Saturday.

Ira Gershwin has long lived in the shadow of his younger brother George Gershwin, undoubtedly one of the greatest of all American composers. George wrote the music, and though he died young, his reputation has soared.

Charlie Duff is disconnected. Despite being an evening-news anchor on a non-network station in Rochester, N.Y., he exists in solitude and obliviousness. He is the creation of playwright Stephen Belber in “The Power of Duff,” having its West Coast premiere at Geffen Playhouse through May 17.

When Andy Cooper was first approached to write the music and lyrics for a musical about 1940s record label owner and music producer John Dolphin, the idea of modernizing the story with a hip-hop score floated around.

A campaign to pay minimum wage to stage actors for rehearsals and performances could bring down the curtain on small community theaters in the South Bay and Harbor Area, operators say. Los Angeles County is the only place in the United States where the Actors’ Equity Association, the national union that represents actors, allows professionals to work for a small fee — or none at all — when they perform in theaters with 99 seats or less that qualify for a so-called equity waiver.

When you hear “Hollywood,” you think movies, right? Or maybe TV. What nobody thinks is theater. Theater is New York or some other place people moved here to escape. When folks come west, they leave behind their snow shovels, mittens and “Regards to Broadway.

Marilyn Monroe made her Los Angeles operatic debut Saturday night at San Pedro’s historic Warner Grand Theatre. Indeed it was such an important occasion that Marilyn was there twice (not counting the one available for runway photos before-hand), impersonated by sopranos Danielle Marcelle Bond and Jamie Chamberlin as Long Beach Opera presented “Marilyn Forever,” the U.

Los Angeles Opera’s wide-ranging exploration, “Figaro Unbound,” reached its appropriate climax Saturday as James Conlon conducted a performance of Mozart’s masterpiece, “The Marriage of Figaro,” that evoked the use of such superlatives as “sublime” and “transcendent.

Last year, Sierra Madre Playhouse embarked on a new endeavor: creating theatrical material suitable for schoolchildren’s weekday matinees. Last year’s was “Battledrum,” an original work tackling the Civil War through the eyes of a preteen drummer.

Ever wondered where the expression “French farce” got its start? Surely one source would be the works of Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, celebrating the fictional barber from Seville and French nobleman’s retainer, Figaro.

F-I-G-A-R-O! F-I-G-A-R-O! Figaro. Figaro. Figaro. Figaro. F-I-G-A-R-O! That’s the refrain that has been echoing from Los Angeles Opera since early January as the company explores the musical and political ramifications of the savvy servant/cultural revolutionary who was brought to life by the French playwright Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais.

One of the signature elements of the entire arts movement in 1920s Berlin is “The Threepenny Opera,” a reworking of John Gay’s 18th century “The Beggar’s Opera” by German greats Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill.

This production of “American Buffalo,” one of modern theater’s seminal plays, is certainly interesting intellectually. David Mamet’s 1975 three-hander is in a co-production by Deaf West Theatre and Cal State Los Angeles at the university’s State Playhouse through March 8.